


Echoes

by Enterprisingly



Series: Light Chasers [3]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Drabble, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-11
Updated: 2013-07-11
Packaged: 2017-12-19 03:44:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/879033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Enterprisingly/pseuds/Enterprisingly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is dirt on his face and sand in his clothing and that is all that is left of Spock's homeworld.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Echoes

**Author's Note:**

> I thought I was done with this series but then this happened. Unbeta'd as usual, if you catch anything please let me know!

Sometimes Spock thinks about the day that his planet was destroyed. Thinks about the rocks crumbling, the ground shaking, the desert sand rolling like red waves. He remembers the roar and rumble of the world as it collapsed. He remembers his mother turning to look at him, reaching for him, falling. Gone. And he remembers the light of his planet burning; terrible and blinding like a thousand suns followed by an even more horrifying darkness.

He cannot help but remember that, but he does not let himself think about the part that came after, because in the wake of the howling nightmare, the silence was so much worse.

There was dirt on his face, when he rematerialized on the transporter pad; sand in his clothing and dust in his hair. Spock is not an emotional creature. Or rather, he is, but not comfortably so. And yet, when he stood in his bathroom, naked and cold, shivering even in the heated room, he could hardly bear to step into the shower. Those were the last few particles of soil from his homeland that would ever cling to his body and it seemed abhorrent to him, to wash that away like such common detritus. Yawning emptiness, where the bonds to his family and others of his species should have been, stretched like eternity inside of his mind. He could not shove down his emotions properly; they were all firing and misfiring rapidly and his psyche was too battered to steady him.

It was a very long time before he finally forced himself to step into the shower and activate the sonic waves. He closed his eyes so that he didn’t have to watch the red and brown dust being blown away.

When he finally left the shower, clean once again and feeling numb inside and out, he turned his attention to his discarded clothing. There were grains of sand still clinging to the fabric, and he slowly and methodically collected every one he could find, pooling them into a tiny pile. In the end, it was hardly more than a few pinches total, but it was all that remained.

He carefully transferred the sand to a jar and tucked it away on the back of a shelf in his quarters. He did not think about the illogic of his actions, the emotionality of it all, and he did not look at or touch the jar again for a very long time.

It isn’t until several years later, when he and Jim have been bonded for several months and are finally consolidating their quarters, and Jim picks it up to examine it, that Spock even actively remembers it’s there.

“Is this…?” he asks, and Spock finds himself frozen in place, hands still on the clothing that he is folding. He feels echoes of old pain and numbness flaring in his memory.

“Yes.”

Jim sets the jar down and comes over to stand by his side, tangling his fingers with Spock’s in a gesture of comfort and love.

“I’m so sorry we couldn’t save your planet, Spock.” He says.

Spock stares at the jar of sand and holds Jim’s hand just a little more tightly. The echoes begin to fade away.

“I too, wish that things had been different." And he does. It it illogical to long for thigns that are gone and will never return, but Spock has found that grief does not lend itself well to logic. But it has been many years now and time has served to ease what logic could not, and Spock no longer suffers as he once did. 

Jim leans over and presses a kiss to Spock’s mouth. It is chaste and quick but it warms Spock like desert sunlight and he knows that is due in no small part to the love Spock can feel, pouring in through their bond, which burns so brightly that it cannot help but chase away the cold and the dark.


End file.
